Coventry OAP 'flung 50 feet by 999 cop car'

A Coventry pensioner, honoured by police for his work in the community, was knocked down and killed by a patrol car on a 999 call.


Ball Hill, Coventry, PC Ross Bosdorff (inset left) and pensioner Dennis Skelley (inset right)

Denis Skelley, aged 82, of Argyll Street, Stoke, suffered multiple injuries in the accident in Walsgrave Road, Ball Hill, on June 10 last year.

He was thrown 15 metres down the road into a parked car and suffered serious multiple injuries, including a fractured skull and torn liver.

He died an hour later at Coventry’s University Hospital.

An inquest at Coventry Magistrates’ Court yesterday heard the police car was being driven by PC Ross Bosdorff to the scene of a “burglary in progress” at a construction site in Brade Drive, Walsgrave.

It had its blue lights and sirens on, and was going at about 40mph in the 30mph zone.

Accident investigators said the car had braked to between 26mph and 32mph at the point of impact.

PC Bosdorff, a police response driver since 2003, told the inquest he first saw Mr Skelley “half a second” before impact.

“I saw a figure – I could not see if it was male or female, old or young – it was very blurred,” he said.

“I have tried for a year to think ‘how and why’ I hit him but I can’t.

“There are a number of possibilities where I could say ‘if I had done this or that’, but when I was driving I was happy I could see everything I needed to.”

PC Bosdorff added: “Since being a police officer I feel I have driven in an excellent manner and will continue to drive that way.”

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